


I Wish I Didn't Sleep So Late

by cashewdani



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Infidelity, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1287619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He just wants to get home and fall asleep in front of the TV to wake up in a world where he has nothing to do with Dunder Mifflin or anyone connected with it.  But, just like every day for the past five years, today is not the day, and tomorrow probably won't be either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Wish I Didn't Sleep So Late

It's been a long day, made even longer by the fact that Michael neglected to tell any of them until 4:15 that corporate wanted them to stay late to prepare for an upcoming audit with David Wallace. So he's still here, three hours later than he's supposed to be, and he can barely stand to be here the hours he's scheduled for to begin with and tomorrow is just more of the same and Ryan knows it's not the first time he's thought about quitting, but it feels like it's going to happen for real this time. His mom will probably pay his cell phone bill for awhile if he says he needs it to get in touch with his sponsor. He'll worry about the rest later.

He just wants to get home and fall asleep in front of the TV to wake up in a world where he has nothing to do with Dunder Mifflin or anyone connected with it. But, just like every day for the past five years, today is not the day, and tomorrow probably won't be either.

And all he was trying to do was go to the bathroom to get a break from Angela explaining to Kevin for the third time about how she wants their files organized, but nothing can ever be that simple. Because Pam is sitting on the floor with her head leaning up against the fridge, and there's a split second that he thinks she's unconscious before she turns to look at him and whispers out a, "Hey" at him before closing her eyes again.

"Pam, you okay?"

"Yeah, just tired."

"Should I get Jim?"

"No. I'll get up..." She makes no move at all to do that. "In a second."

He knows that if it was anyone else he would just go right on into the men's room and hope they were gone by the time he came out, but he sits down next to her on the floor. "We have chairs in here you know."

"This was closer." Pam moves her head onto his shoulder. "Never get pregnant, Ryan. Promise me."

He laughs quietly. "I'll do my best." She's not even showing yet, no one really should know that she's knocked up, but Kelly overheard her making a call to her doctor, and once Kelly knew, there was no way everyone wasn't going to hear about it within an hour.

"Are we getting close to being done?"

"I honestly have no idea what we're even doing here and I used to conduct these audits."

She sighs and he wants to touch her face, but Jim's coming in through the swinging door. "Hey, what's going on in here?"

"Ryan was keeping me company in my near coma." He thinks that she's going to move her head, but she doesn't.

"Was he really?" Ryan can see that Jim's pissed off and he kind of likes it. "I think we should go. You know, if you're exhausted."

"But the audit," she kind of murmurs.

Ryan can't help smiling. "Yeah, Jim, what about the audit?"

"Somehow I think you'll manage without us." He puts out his hand. "Come on, Pam."

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Pam pushes off on his thigh and maybe today is actually fantastic. "Ryan, call me if I miss anything worthwhile."

"Will do."

Later that night, after he finally gets home and heats up the leftover meatloaf his mother wrapped up for him, he keeps pulling his phone out even though nothing interesting happened.

*****

Michael's newest thing is to send them out on paired sales calls. They're not supposed to be doing them, David told them specifically the last time he was in town, trying to get the point across to Michael that if they split up, they'll visit more clients and cover more ground. But Michael apparently Tivo'ed a marathon of "The Amazing Race" again and here they are. No one has the strength to argue with him any more. 

And some times he pulls their names out of a hat, or has them pick, but today he told Ryan he had to go with Pam because it's some anniversary of the MSPC. Ryan doesn't know which because he wasn't really paying attention, but all he's thinking about is how he used to do this all the time. Pam would drive and rag on him about how this was kind of exactly like all the times he had to chauffeur Todd Packer around, the windows down so Ryan could smoke, and both of them arguing about the radio station and the temperature and where they were going to eat lunch.

She must remember too, because before they've even pulled out, she cracked his window, turned up the heat and told him she's picking the first three songs, she doesn't even care if he's sick of Lady Gaga.

They hit an accounting office, and two lawyers, and Pam's making some sales. Smiling and resting her hand on where her stomach is bulging just slightly now. He'd joke about her healthy glow if he could think of a way to do it that didn't make him sound like some sort of creepy pervert. Before they leave for a chiropractor's in Dunmore, she asks one of the receptionists if there's a restroom she can use, and leaves him just sitting in the waiting area, playing on his phone.

He's texted everyone in his address book who's still speaking to him, before she comes out. And she walks past him quietly, saying over her back in a whisper, "Do you mind driving?"

"Ok..." he says, hesitantly, trying to read her face.

Passing him her keys, she says, "I think my GPS has a preset for the hospital."

*****

He has no idea why there's so many people in the emergency room on a Wednesday afternoon, or why the fact that Pam is possibly miscarrying right next to him is not in fact considered that big of an emergency. Plus, all those people he texted back at the law office have started responding, and he feels like a dick every single time his phone dings.

She keeps trying to call Jim, but winds up bumped to voicemail repeatedly. And Ryan doesn't know if he's supposed to touch her, or not touch her, and why this is happening right now.

"Do you want me to go talk to the nurses again?" he asks, because that's at least something that seems appropriate.

"No, they're busy," she says, sighing and pressing 2 on her phone again before closing it, and throwing it in her bag. She closes her eyes, looking so drawn and worried, that he struggles to remember what she looked like a half hour ago talking about the customer service they could offer that Staples couldn't. "Actually, could you?"

So, he gets up, trying to keep his attention focused on her, and on the woman behind the desk who is on the phone, but not talking, just holding up one finger to his face. Before they've even managed to make eye contact, he sees someone walking up to Pam, taking her back through some automatic doors.

And once she's behind the doors, in the real part of the hospital where they actually treat people and don't just leave them around to worry themselves into worse condition, he goes back and sits down in the super uncomfortable chairs as some little boy in the corner throws up into a garbage can, and a man holds a bloody washcloth to his forehead.

It's the most bizarre thing, but now that she's in there, with presumably doctors and machines and medicine, he feels like everything's going to be okay. Because she's surrounded by people who know what they're doing instead of a dipshit like him who might have asked three times in the car, "Well, how badly do you think you're bleeding?" And it's not his proudest moment, but really few things are recently, when he starts wondering if anyone's going to come out looking for him. Thinking he's her husband and the baby's his.

Like that doesn't make him a candidate to emcee the douchebag parade.

And right when he's trying to figure out how long he'd let it go on before saying something, Jim's bursting in through the door and looking like the world's just going to swallow him whole. The way Ryan should be looking himself because he's clearly going straight to hell. "They just took her back," he says before Jim even asks where she is, and then he's running towards the nursing station, pulling out his ID and insurance card.

Andy follows in from the parking lot, after, and stands next to Ryan for a few minutes, before they both realize they don't need to be there.

*****

Pam, it turns out, was fine, and Jim finally stops following her around like she's going to drop dead on the floor after about a week, and things go back to normal.

Normal meaning Ryan's still more in love with her than he should be, hooking up with Kelly when it gets a little too difficult to deal with. He guesses he's still chasing after rock bottom.

*****

It's Christmas and he's alone and Pam's fucking married and having Jim's baby, and all he wants is a line, or a toke, or at least a drink. God, a drink would be amazing. But of course this Christmas has to be a dry one because of what happened with Meredith last year, and because Michael and the Kellys are both on this cleanse, and oh yeah, because Pam is still pregnant.

And he's doing alright distracting himself, talking with Toby about _Where the Wild Things Are_ because Toby'd taken Sasha to see it, and Ryan's loved Karen O for years. But then Jim's kissing Pam under the mistletoe and Kelly's dancing with Darryl and purposefully shooting him looks, and he's just fucking done.

Creed tells him there's a half empty bottle of Wild Turkey under the sink in the kitchen for $15, and he kind of hates bourbon, but he kind of hates his life more.

His phone and his keys are in his desk drawer, so he doesn't have to think about how he should be calling his sponsor or that he'll have to throw out the chips he's been collecting in the morning. Start over again, at the beginning. Even though nothing much changes and it winds up being time to reboot again.

He moves the furniture so that he can sit with his back on the far side of the fridge, where he's hopefully out of sight from everyone. He'd say he's only had about four shots when Meredith comes in to use the bathroom. She looks at him, and she just seems so sad, and that's maybe the worst thing so far. That even Meredith's pitying him. And because he's defiant and a dick, he holds the bottle up to his mouth, and takes another gulp that shouldn't be burning this much on the way down any more. "You want some?" he offers, with venom, and maybe Kelly was right that he was kind of a mean drunk sometimes. "I'll get the fire extinguisher ready if you do."

"Fuck you, Ryan," and she pushes the door open to the ladies room.

He's got to get out of here, but it takes him a second. Grabbing onto the back of the chair and pushing his back flush against the fridge. It still feels like he stood up too fast, like the room is moving just a little. He hasn't had a drink since Halloween, and that was even just a beer. He's gotten to be a very cheap date apparently. And he knows that the best way for people to realize you're drunk is to try to act sober, but he doesn't know what else he's really supposed to do. Walking through the office, he realizes that everyone is staring at him, and then a second later that he's still holding the bottle in his hand.

But he just keeps walking, out the door and down the stairs, ignoring how everything was really quiet except Michael shrieking that he didn't want to spend another Christmas driving to rehab. Not with his best friend.

It's freezing out in the parking lot and it both helps and makes things worse, because it sobers him up a little. He wants to start running laps up and down, but he's sure that everyone is peering out the conference room windows, so he just stands there in his work clothes, wanting to open the bottle again. Knowing he should keep it closed. And there's a moment when he feels like he could honestly start to cry. Just try to wring himself out of all of it. The disappointment and the regret and the hopelessness. But he convinces himself it's just the wind.

He's blinking quickly and shaking his shoulders out, trying to take a deep breath in, but the cold's cutting his lungs like a knife when he hears his name. He whips around, and there's Pam, holding his coat out in her hand. Her own just barely buttoning over the bump of her belly. "Why don't we go sit in my car, okay?" she asks, and he nods, feeling shaky inside and out. Places the bourbon down on the curb.

She starts the car, and turns the heat up high as he leans back in his seat and closes his eyes. He can hear her rubbing her hands together, the sound of her gloves sliding over one another. And then she's putting the car into gear and backing out, and he doesn't even care where she's taking him. If the Party Planning Committee just appointed her as the designated rehab driver for this social function because it was unlikely that anyone was going to get belligerent and punch her, even that's okay.

But she doesn't drive far, just to another parking lot down the block, and she turns off the exterior lights. He opens his eyes to see it's dark except for the little glow from the radio display. He figures they're hiding out, from the cameras, and he feels that weird tightness in his throat again. Like he's going to start sobbing because he doesn't deserve anything like this. Not from Pam, especially. 

She won't look at him, and it's only because of an early morning paper delivery that he knows she's doing it actually to be nice. Because of that one time when he made Michael stop the van so he could puke up the vodka from the night before, and he'd screamed at her, "Do you think it makes it better if you watch?" in between heaving onto someone's front lawn.

She's just staring out the front windshield, and it's so quiet, and he likes her so much and there's never going to be another chance it seems, that's what his brain says, and that's why he angles himself so he can kiss her. And she lets him. She doesn't push him off, and he's able to put a hand over her cheek, his fingers just grazing the still chilly Christmas earring she's wearing. There's a second, just the one, that he feels so happy and pleased and good. And then he figures she's probably letting him do it because what she has with Jim is so strong that it wouldn't even matter that one time the stupid temp they worked with got drunk at the holiday party and felt her up a little in the car.

And then he's sick and sad and empty feeling inside all over again, pulling back and slumping back into his seat. "You okay?" Pam asks him, and he flushes all over, shamed and disgusted. 

"Don't be nice to me," he tells her, trying to steal himself against the anger that's boiling around in his chest.

"Should we go to a meeting?"

"You're not supposed to go when you're still intoxicated, Pam. It's frowned upon."

"Well then, we can sit here for awhile."

But Ryan can't sit in the car with the married, pregnant girl he just kissed. Because he's just going to kiss her again, or bawl like a little baby or any number of things that he's not going to want to face in the morning. He opens the car door, and she reaches over to stop him, but he's already going, sprinting away from the car, not sure where he's heading as long as it's away.

It takes him an hour, but he makes it home, and has to ring the bell and wake his parents to let him in and it's the worst night he's had in a long time.

*****

When the baby is born, he feels like he's supposed to go visit at the hospital, because that's what you do. What everyone else is doing. But he says that he feels like he's coming down with something so he doesn't have to. Sends her a text saying, "Congratulations on becoming a MILF," as though that's somehow appropriate, that she responds to with a simple, "ass".

He bought the kid a Milkaholic onesie that he thinks is more funny than sad and has Jim take it home once he starts coming back to work. He gets the same thank you notes he knows she sent to everyone because Phyllis has hers out on her desk.

And the night they all wind up going out together, for happy hour, he makes sure to spend the whole thing with Kelly, because it's the right thing to do, and it's time that he starts trying that instead of the alternative.

But when he goes home that night, he jerks off in his bed like a sad fifteen year old, thinking about taking Pam into the photobooth, and making out with her like he used to do with the girls in high school. Except, Pam's a grown woman with these now _gigantic_ breasts, and it's sick, but he thinks about them leaking while they're kissing. 

Pam is somebody's mom and he's the damaged fuck who gets off thinking about these things. Closing his eyes and imaging just barely hearing her moan amongst all the pinging of the machines, her shirt wet and him straining in his jeans. Her trying to make it all better. Like he's actually deserving of something like that.


End file.
